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HOUSTON (AP) — Floodwaters kept rising Tuesday across much of Texas as storms dumped almost another foot of rain on the Houston area, stranding hundreds of motorists and inundating the famously congested highways that serve the nation’s fourth-largest city.

Meanwhile, the search went on for 30 people who were missing after flooding along the Blanco River in Central Texas, including a group of people who disappeared after a vacation home was swept down the river and slammed into a bridge.

Houston authorities recovered three more bodies from the floodwaters — two of them in the city and a third in a vehicle on Interstate 45. That brought to 11 the number of people killed by the holiday weekend storms in Oklahoma and Texas.

The water continued rising overnight as the area received about 11 more inches, much of it in a six-hour period.

Firefighters carried out more than 500 water rescues, mostly stranded motorists. And at least 2,500 vehicles were abandoned on the streets by drivers seeking higher ground, said Rick Flanagan, Houston’s emergency management coordinator.

The flooding closed several highways in Houston, and the ones that stayed open became a gridlocked mess.

Interstate 45 near downtown was backed up for miles on Tuesday morning, with a handful of motorists traveling the wrong way on the highway to retreat from high water.

The small cars weaved between massive 18-wheelers as drivers stared at them in disbelief. With no end to the backup in sight, some drivers got off the freeway, only to be held up again by water covering nearby access roads.

In the Heights neighborhood about 5 miles from downtown, groups of people roamed the streets after escaping their stalled cars, and police cruisers blocked some roads where the water had caused dangerous conditions.

Some motorists were stuck on Interstate 45 all night, sleeping in their cars until the backup was cleared about 8 a.m. (read more)

Father, please extend Your mercy and grace to the victims of these natural disasters. Comfort these persons and protect them.

Please continue to provide food, clothing, shelter and employment for them. Continue to touch the heart of our nation and world to give.

Holy Spirit, touch the hearts of local, state, and federal government officials to properly rebuild the levees, dams and drainage systems within the communities of our nation.

Protect the firefighters, public service workers and volunteers who are serving and let Your everlasting love be felt overwhelmingly by the people.

Lord, help the body of Christ to demonstrate Jesus’ love through acts of giving and compassion. Lord, we ask You to send Your laborers to share Your Gospel and to gather Your harvest.

Thank you, Lovely, for doing the update on me. I was in the Dallas area yesterday. We had straight line winds and lots of rain but was in a high area. Back in west Texas now. More storms headed to DFW.

Prayers, being sent.. Sounds Like they are being affected, Like We had on the East Coast after Hurricane Floyd… Not enough Prayers, though I’m Positive those folks can OVERCOME… With their FAITH in the Lord & Prayers…

Sending thoughts and prayers from NJ. Hey, does anyone know if a reliable charity fund has been set up for the victims of this storm? I usually donated through Salvation Army, not sure how reliable they are these days, but if anyone knows of something please let me know. Thanks, Lynn

Amen. I’m safe and sound over here in San Marcos. Thankfully It didn’t flood too badly by my home. I haven’t had a chance to really drive around and check things out. I figured they didn’t need any extra cars and gawkers on the roads.

I’m pretty close to Brays Bayou and can tell you many old homes that have never flooded got wet with this one. We have had a very generous amount of rain this year and taking over 9″ in a few hours with these saturated soils was the kicker.

One of my kids is acquainted with the family that got swept away in Wimberly. Like many vacation homes this time of year it was packed for the opening of summer. His in-laws have a place in the same river park area and they see those people all the time. I believe they are out of Corpus Christie.

There were Severe T-Storm warnings in Oklahoma but I think they’ve expired now.

Sending my prayers to all the families who have lost their loved ones. Homes can be rebuilt, cars and material things can be replaced, people can’t be. I see people right here next to me that are putting their lives and children’s lives in danger by trying to stay in their homes, thinking it won’t rise any farther.

Would be honored to be a treeper but for now grateful to be allowed to post (and mostly lurk) on this fine site. In north Houston and all is good here.

Thank you for the lovely prayer.

Please keep this family in your thoughts and prayer. Absolutely horrific…
“Jonathan, was separated from his wife, Laura, and their children – Leighton, 4, and Andrew, 6 – when the home was knocked off its foundation. McComb said the home floated down the river with the people still inside before striking the bridge.”

The wife called her sister to tell her she was in the house with the children and was floating down the swollen river. Told her sister she loved her and ask her to pray.

I live just outside of abilene, TX and have taken part of my vacation to assist the fire dept. my brother is a part of in relief efforts. I am not a firefighter. I am a welder. They are experiencing trouble with people stealing items off of trucks while the responders are sleeping or too occupied to guard every door on their trucks. Power companies are trying to repair things and having copper stolen anytime they leave it. Right now we have it covered. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Hey neighbor, I also live right outside of Abilene. Thank you for helping out the fire department. I can’t believe all this rain. My heart just aches for all those missing people. We just missed getting hit by another wave of thunderstorms, but remain under tornado watch until 10 p.m. Thank you God for the rain, we’re good now!

It wasn’t one of the areas that had a lot of rain. The 8″+ falls were basically from Rosenberg where I am to downtown. The majority of the flooding is in the downtown areas where all the bayou’s drain into the port of Houston.
My place has looked like a rice paddy so much this year I’m thinking of planting a crop.

We are in Houston and ok Thanks! Had a oak tree fall on the DSL DSLAM box by the street took out our internet! AT&T put up a portable generator already! Didn’t relize how bad it was last night water wise! It was a constant light show for hours with rolling Thunder non stop! My coworker said the Thunder was shaking his house like being shelled in a war zone! Driving to work around 10:30AM saw view cars abandon water had receded except one spot had to drive up wrong way for about 100′. Oak Trees down all over the place! Coming home from work and tree companies had already cut up the trees!

Thank you for that beautiful prayer. Keeping my fellow Texans lifted up to the Lord in prayer. The weather over the weekend was frighteningly crazy. Tornado warnings, flash flood warnings galore. I woke up in the morning after the worst in my area…only to find a pic in the paper of a tornado, taken during one of the storms…located about a couple of blocks away from my house. Shudder!

I live in Central Texas, above Austin. No flooding here but we have lakes that had the room to spare. I spent the week in El Paso and didn’t see any flooding on the west end of I-10 or 190. It seems to all be centered south of Austin and east of San Antonio, all the way down to Houston.

We need the rain, but the hard ground doesn’t soak it up so well. If you have ever been to Texas, you know the cement canals/aqueducts are dry most of the time. I won’t laugh about them now. Texas isn’t built for rain. The roads don’t have the runoffs on the sides or as many storm drains as wetter states. You have to drive in the middle of the road and hope they gave it a bit of slope.

The state of Texas has a really long shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico. People who live along the coast are accustomed to dealing with hurricane season every year. So they are better prepared to deal with flooding.

However, the entire rest of the state of Texas normally does not get a lot of rain, so it is not well prepared to deal with flooding.

I could not mow my lawn over the Memorial day weekend because it kept raining so much in Dallas. Finally today the sun came out for a while so I cut grass after work. Then lo and behold, it has started storming again this evening. Just unbelievable.

Beautiful prayer. Lifting up my fellow Texans in prayer around the clock. Weather has been wild. Multiple tornado warnings, flash flood warnings. Had a tornado warning for my area the other night and woke the next morning to find a pic in the paper of said tornado….just a couple of blocks from my home. Scary stuff. It’s been so wet and so humid- I fill as if I’m growing mildew.

San Antonio didn’t do too badly, as far as I can tell- just the “usual suspects” (places) that always flood anyway. Our house is high & dry & we hunker down. I guess it’s all the creeks/ rivers, but the Hill Country always gets hit hard when there’s a flood event (& of course, Houston area because the water table is so high & all the bayous) Seems like this happens about every 10- 15, 20 years or so. Working flood claims in 1987, you could actually see springs (coming out of the side of hills) flowing up. We wondered if it was an optical illusion or really happening.

We really needed this rain. It’s either feast or famine. (aarrgghh, the mosquitoes!)

Thank you for the beautiful prayer, Sundance.

aside to Les: Austin looked pretty bad. Shoal Creek & 6th Street, anyway- among others. I’ve forgotten where I saw the pictures. It was either kens5 or khou, I think. (both, dot com)

Thank you, I’ll check those out. My buddy lives on a hill overlooking Austin. I’m glad they are all fine, but I feel badly celebrating the ones I know when so many more are having a rough time.

I’m thankful we have a strong military presence ready to help if things get much worse. Our neighbors to the south aren’t as blessed and I don’t see us going across to help them much. Maybe they are re-thinking their death threats to all Americans who wear uniforms.

DFW area here. I feel like a vampire. The sun was out for a short time off and on today and it hurt my eyes. It’s been a long time that we’ve been drenched or threatened with severe weather but have survived just fine so far. We’re the lucky ones…

A comment in moderation? A first! Don’t believe that has ever happened to me! Ah well- safe here in TX…just growing mildew with the wet and humidity. Prayers, prayers…non-stop prayers for my fellow Texans. It’s been wild.

Keeping all of you in Texas in my thoughts and prayers. So many affected by this horrible weather…so many losses. Hoping for the best for the families of those missing. Glad to read that the Texas Treepers are safe.

Blessings to Sundance, treehouse, and treepers! Thank you! Prayer is powerful! The devastation here in Texas, and Oklahoma, is heart-wrenching, and on a personal note, all is well, -loved ones accounted for- finally. The weather alerts subsided late afternoon; a heavy downpour in the evening did not cause alarm for another alert except from my job – building still closed til further notice due to flooding.

I’m in the DFW area also. Still on high ground for now. My FIL lake house on Cedar Creek was not so lucky. A tree came down over the roof (not very much damage), but clean up is labor intensive 🙂 Heading back down today to finish the job.

I grew up in Houston. This isn’t the first time for floods in Houston. Houston is coastal plain, flat as a pancake. So there isn’t much protection when the bayous overflow. The house I lived in was never reached by the water but the flood would reach the yard. The streets flood, of course. that happened many times. it was fun wading through 2-3 foot water in the streets as a kid. Due to the massive growth, a lot of big, expensive houses were built in flood plains. Too bad we don’t have video of those neighborhoods. They built a lot of these expensive houses on flood plains near NASA, near Galveston Bay. They must be inundated now. And it rains a lot in East Texas. So after a big rain. the streets would flood to some degree depending on the amount of rain.